Directory:The Wikipedia Point of View/Peter Damian Evidence

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Evidence for the Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee (September 2008)

Peter Damian Background

Mathematics, logic and set theory

Philosophy and Logic

Medieval philosophy and logic

Aristotle

Biographies

Gospel music

Architecture

Argument

My argument for unblocking is simple, as follows.

  • Principled and good-faith criticism of another person is not the same thing as a personal attack or harassment.
  • My criticism of the editor called FT2 has been principled and in good faith. My actions should not therefore be labelled as 'harassment'.

The major premiss is clear. Everyone accepts that fair and principled criticism of another editor's action is essential to the continued survival of the Wikipedia project. To demonstrate the minor premiss, it will be necessary to discuss and criticise some of FT2's contributions to the Wikipedia project, and to see how the blocks of Peter Damian are connected with this.

Criticism of FT2

  • He has no real knowledge of the subjects he edits, although he claims to have it.
  • He does not really understand the basics of neutral editing (although he claims to understand). He cites erotic websites, self-published sources. He quotes authors like Nancy Friday, whose work is pure pulp fiction.
  • He does not understand the principles of peer review. He imagines the fact that someone is published in the field, or has a doctorate, or is well-known, or has had their writings vetted by somebody else of note, is of itself sufficient to merit inclusion in an article. His understanding of the relative merits of publications is seriously flawed, e.g. in referencing journals like the one put out by The International Society for Anthrozoology (which is not a recognised journal). The following list suggests he is unable to distinguish between a training course and a university department.
  • He even misattributes material. An egregious example was when he claimed that the eminent linguist George Lakoff had endorsed Neurolinguistic programming - a significant and important fact if true, but had he bothered to check his source, he would have seen that the quote was not by Lakoff.
  • If this is pointed out or challenged, he indulges in long-winded denunciations in a way that is guaranteed to escalate hostility, or he conceals his lack of understanding behind a logorrheic thicket of words. This makes any reasonable discussion of the subject matter impossible. At the same time he assume an aura of righteousness by means of an interminable invocation of Wikipedia rules and tenets. He personalises all editorial discussion with interminable ad hominems
  • He seems to many to be driven by a personal agenda. One person said that his editorship "absolutely stinks of partiality and POV motivations", and that his claim of making an article "more neutral" is tantamount to watering it down to suit an agenda of which he himsel may not be fully conscious". Another said that he carries "an ideological stench wherever (s)he seems to go in "Wikipedia World". There is a clear advocacy and promotion in FT2s edits. Furthermore, the promotion and advocacy is unsophisticated and lazy in the sense that it is apparently exlusively based on Google. FT2's edits are replete with unsubstantiated opinion -- the "NLP and Science" article is a particularly egregious example of this tendency, it is a mass of unsubstantiated verbiage"[1].
  • This manner seems almost deliberately calculated to annoy and infuriate editors with an academic background. His pernicious insistence on absurd and trivialised standards of 'civility' to the exclusion of all editorial or content determined material, is having a marked and deleterious effect on the project.

Combined with the important position he holds on Wikipedia, and the reverential awe in which he is held by less knowledgeable and more impressionable administrators, FT2 exercises a malignant and pernicious influence on the encyclopedia. He has driven off a stream of excellent and well-qualified editors. He has gathered around him a group of administrators who hold him in high esteem for his supposed impartiality and neutrality, and who will block upon a single word from him.

Blocks of Peter Damian

Relevant accounts

Block logs

Relevant Blocks

  • 4 December 2007 Radiant! (Smear campaign)
  • 6 December 2007 WJBscribe (legal threat)
  • 29 June 2008 Ryan Postlethwaite (Harassment)
  • 13 August 2008 (MBisanz - personal attack or harassment)
  • 01:45, 31 August 2008 by Coren (incivility)
  • 23:11, 6 September 2008 by Jimbo Wales (harassment)

4 December 2007

6 December 2007

WJBscribe (legal threat)

29 June 2008

Aside from fixing the outcome, it also left Peter with a very unfair black mark of "harassing" FT2, and left me with a de facto shoot-on-sight probation, administered by the same crowd of gullible administrators who have gathered round FT2. These have been indefinitely blocking me any time he challenges FT2's administrative actions surrounding the articles in question, each time citing the last bad block as the reason for the new one.

Ryan Postlethwaite (Harassment)

13 August 2008

(MBiszanz - personal attack or harassment)

31 August 2008

by Coren (incivility)

6 September 2008

  • by Jimbo Wales (harassment)
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